Big Investigator

By Michael Webster: Investigative Reporter Sept 1, 2008 3:00 PM PDT

 

Gov. Sarah Palin



 Gov. Sarah Palin. Get complete past and current coverage of Alaska’s Governor as she battles to become the next vice president.

 

The serious claims against Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin asserts that the Governor ordered the head of the Alaska State Troopers Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan to fire her brother in law State Trooper Michael Wooten which is being reported by the Anchorage newspapers to have roots in the governors family feud. This scandal erupted into public view with the July 11 firing of the state’s top public safety official.

Even though the John McCain camp says they were aware of this legal action pending it’s not resolved even now as she becomes U.S. Sen. John McCain’s running mate.

The papers are calling it “Troopergate” and reporting Palin’s abrupt dismissal of Monegan on July 11 is being investigated by a special counsel hired by the Alaska Legislature.

The Laguna Journal has learned that the Governor has now hired her own lawyer to defend and help unravel this potenuelly embarrassing circumstance.

 

Lisa  Demera reported in the Anchorage daily news that the issue is whether Palin, her administration or family improperly pressured state Public Safety Commissioner Walt Monegan to fire a state trooper — the ex-husband of Palin’s sister — and whether Palin fired Monegan when that didn’t happen. Trooper Michael Wooten and Palin’s sister, Molly McCann, are divorced but still battling in court over custody and visitation rights.

The McCain campaign says Palin “was never directly involved” and blamed the controversy on the campaign of the Democratic nominee, U.S. Sen. Barack Obama.

“The Governor did nothing wrong and has nothing to hide. It’s outrageous that the Obama campaign is trying to attack her over a family issue. As a reformer and a leader on ethics reform, she has been happy to help out in the investigation of this matter, because she was never directly involved,” the campaign said in a statement. When the Obama people were contacted by the Journal we were told that the Obama campaign was not the source of the story.

 

Palin has repeatedly said she did not pressure Monegan and did not know until recently that anyone on her staff might have done so.

 

This trooper controversy is not new according to locals James Wright of Anchorage who said,” this family trooper thing has been talked about by Alaskans for weeks, long before Palin was picked for the Vice Presidency. It has been brought to light and being thrust into the bright lights of the national campaign because of her appointment to the national stage.”

Trooper Michael Wooten claims Gov Palin was directly involved and was attempting to help her sister by using her powerful office to intervene and tried to have me fired, Wooten said. The governor twice brought up Wooten to him — once on the phone soon after she took office, and once in person not long after that, Monegan said.

Plus, the governor’s husband, Todd, talked to him several times about Wooten, three top officials in her administration contacted him, and another Palin aide contacted a trooper lieutenant, Monegan said.

 

Palin recently acknowledged, based on an internal inquiry, that a half dozen people in her administration had initiated contacts with the Department of Public Safety about Wooten.

Monegan also disclosed for the first time Friday that Palin sent him two or three e-mails that referenced her ex-brother-in-law and his status with troopers but he wouldn’t provide them because of the ongoing investigation.

Monegan said he believes his firing was directly related to the fact Wooten stayed on the job.

“It was a significant factor if not the factor,” Monegan said.

No one from the McCain campaign ever contacted him to vet Palin as a candidate, Monegan said.

Who did they contact?

“We don’t talk about the vetting process,” said Maria Comella, Palin’s vice president campaign press secretary.

Demera went on to say the Legislature is spending up to $100,000 “to investigate the circumstances and events surrounding the termination of former Public Safety Commissioner Monegan, and potential abuses of power and/or improper actions by members of the executive branch.”

The investigation is supposed to wrap up by Oct. 31, just days before the general election.

Palin will be deposed along with others in the governor’s office and former administration officials, said state Sen. Hollis French, a Democrat and former state prosecutor from Anchorage who is serving as the project director for the investigation. The special counsel just this week was trying to arrange Palin’s deposition, French said.

 

The investigation will continue, French said.

“I think it raises the profile but it doesn’t really change the mission or the work,” the senator said.

Before she was governor, Palin pushed for a trooper investigation of Wooten over a number of matters, including using a Taser on his stepson, illegally shooting a moose, and accusations of driving drunk. At one point, Palin and her husband hired a private investigator.

Troopers did investigate, and Wooten was suspended for 10 days, later reduced to five. That took care of it, Monegan said. But the Palin administration and Todd Palin wouldn’t let go, he said.

Palin initially said that, after she took office in December 2006, she broached the subject of Wooten with Monegan just once, when they discussed her security detail. She said that she told Monegan that Wooten “had threatened to kill my dad and bring me down.” She said she thought that was the end of it.

Monegan said Palin called him on his cell phone one night in January 2007 about Wooten, but it wasn’t related to her security detail. He said he had already met with Todd Palin about Wooten, whom he hadn’t heard of before, and had looked into the family’s complaints only to learn they already had been investigated. Palin seemed frustrated that nothing more could be done, he said.

“For the record, no one ever said fire Wooten. Not the governor. Not Todd. Not any of the other staff,” Monegan said Friday from Portland. “What they said directly was more along the lines of ‘this isn’t a person that we would want to be representing our state troopers.’”

Palin again brought up Wooten in February 2007 as they were walking together to wish a state senator a happy birthday, Monegan said. He said he told Palin he had to keep her at arm’s distance on the matter and she agreed.

Andrew Halcro, was the first to publicly mention the Wooten matter in connection with Monegan. He titled his blog post: “Why Walt Monegan got fired: Palin’s abuse of power.”

“This is a governor who really built her name by stepping on the back of sinners — Randy Ruedrich, Greg Renkes, Frank Murkowski,” Halcro said in an interview Friday, referring to the Republican Party chairman, the former attorney general and the former governor. “And now her administration seems to be taking the same approach as the people that she criticized.”

More of the story came out on July 17, when the Public Safety Employees Association, with Wooten’s permission, released the investigative file concerning the complaints brought against the trooper by the Palin family and others.

The personnel investigation began in April 2005, long before Palin became governor and months before her October 2005 announcement that she was running. The investigation into Wooten wrapped up in March 2006, before she was elected.

Troopers found four instances in which Wooten violated policy, broke the law, or both:

- Wooten used a Taser on his stepson, to show him how it worked.

- He shot a moose without a permit. At the time he was married to McCann, who won a highly coveted permit in a drawing but never intended to use it herself.

- He drank beer in his patrol car on one occasion.

- He told others that his father-in-law — Palin’s father, Chuck Heath — would “eat an f’ing lead bullet” if he helped his daughter get an attorney for the divorce.

On July 28, the state Legislative Council, a bipartisan panel of senators and representatives, approved hiring an independent investigator to look into Monegan’s firing and any abuse of power. Retired prosecutor Steve Branchflower was named special counsel.

“I’ve said all along you could come up with dust, you come up with no evidence of wrongdoing, or you could come up with clear evidence of wrongdoing. And it might be by the governor, it might be somebody else,” French, the state senator, said Friday.

Meanwhile, Palin also faces an ethics complaint filed by Andree McLeod, a former state employee and political activist. McLeod has accused the governor’s office of using its influence to get a Palin supporter a job. Complaints against the governor go before a three-person state personnel board. McLeod based her complaint on e-mails between members of the governor’s staff that are among four boxes of papers she got through a recent public records request.

This month, as Palin’s administration gathered materials for the legislative investigation, the governor released a recording of a phone call in which one of her aides pressured a trooper lieutenant to fire Wooten.

That contradicted her earlier claims that there had been no pressure. She said she was unaware of the conversation until then.

In the Feb. 29 phone call, which was recorded by troopers as they do routinely, aide Frank Bailey told the trooper lieutenant that Palin and her husband wanted to know why Wooten still had a job.

“Todd and Sarah are scratching their heads, ‘Why on earth hasn’t this, why is this guy still representing the department?’ He’s a horrible recruiting tool, you know,” Bailey told Lt. Rodney Dial.

Palin has put Bailey on paid administrative leave during the investigation. She said she never asked Bailey to make that call.

After Monegan’s dismissal, Palin’s pick for his replacement backfired. Charles Kopp, who had been police chief in Kenai, lasted just two weeks in the job, stepping down as public safety commissioner in July over revelations of sexual harassment while police chief.

At a press conference to announce Kopp’s resignation, both Palin and Kopp read brief statements then, in an unusual move for Palin, dashed off without answering questions.

Regarding Monegan, Palin has maintained that her decision to fire him had nothing to do with his refusal to dump Wooten. She said she wanted a “new direction” for the department.

Palin has formed a committee to help her pick a new public safety commissioner.



By: michael Webster

About the Author:

It is often commissioned a private investigator for help when you meet legal problems or would like to indent your doubts. It is really a good choice but you will have to face an important problem before entrust a private investigator, that is, how to make sure that the item will be entrusted to one qualified private investigator?

It is a prudent and complicated thing to choose one qualified private investigator properly, but don’t worry, may be the following our experienced information has some help to you.

Before formally touch with one investigator, first you should consider following factors:

1. It is important to sure that how many years of experience does the private investigator have and how much experience does he have relevant to your particular type of case?

2. You should find out what the licensing requirements are for an investigator in your local state, and make sure it is operated legally.

3. It is important to check out anyone who will be working on your case, their ages, qualifications and professional ethics, etc; also you should pay more attention that how many persons will be participated in this case.

4. It is not the most important whether it is member of any professional organizations or association for investigators, but it is a plus.

When you prepare well above items, the next step you should do is to contact the private investigator, which can be gained through the recommendation from your friend or to search directly from the internet website. It is better to login some professional investigator directory or the website of investigator organization, for usually these information will be opened, such as Pi engine International Directory of Private Investigator .

During touch with the investigator, and according to the previous considered four factors to determine whether this investigator professional or not, besides, also will be referred the quotation and the time to finish the case which will be another important way to determine whether this investigator professional or not. As to the quotation and time, you can contact several private investigators, and compare with them, but remember that the cheapest may be not the best, When you make choice not only to compare the price but also quantity.

Usually there will be following characters for unqualified private investigator or without any aptitude:

1. Not will to reveal the number of fixed telephone, but only mobile number.

2. The quoted price will be lower than others of the industry, and easily to have a bargain.

3. Not will to reveal or have no relative fixed operation place.

4. Feeling poor qualification or reply unprofessional when talking on the phone.

If you meet above four situations, then you should be more caution.



By: Steven

About the Author:

If you aspire to become a private investigator, be prepared as private investigators perform a variety of private investigation jobs.

Corporate and celebrity protection, pre-employment verifications, computer crimes, copyright infringements and individual background searches are only a few of the many services that private investigators can offer to companies.

Individuals more often hire private investigators to find a missing person, an adopted child’s natural parents, or a birth father for a child custody case. And of course, private investigators are most often hired to find out and prove cases of spousal infidelity.

Surveillance is one of the many activities conducted by private investigators. In surveillance, a private investigator finds a good location where he or she does not appear conspicuous but still have a good view of what is happening. A private investigator might carry a special camera for private investigation jobs that require evidence, not just surveillance.

Much of the work of being a private investigator in the 21st century requires the use of computers to gather information. The Internet provides connections to vast storehouses of information, especially public records. Thus, not only should a private investigator be street smart; he or she should also be computer and Internet savvy.

Many private investigation jobs require special knowledge in a field. This is the reason many private investigators specialize. A private investigator must learn additional information specific to the type of investigation he or she specializes in, which help a private investigator become better at the job as he or she gains experience. One example of an exciting specialization that requires a great deal of additional knowledge is that of a legal investigator. A legal investigator must have a strong grasp of civil and penal law so that he or she can find infractions.

A private investigator must focus on his or her client’s needs. The investigator is obliged to share the findings of his or her investigation with only the client.

Three types of private investigators performing private investigation jobs:

1. Corporate investigators – Corporate investigators conduct both external and internal investigations in a corporation. They are hired to find out internal information on employees, such as whether an employee uses drugs or drinks alcohol while on the premises of their employer or whether an employee is stealing from the company. In an external investigation, corporate investigators may be hired to attempt to prevent any type of crime from the outside, such as intellectual property. 2. Economical or financial investigators – Financial investigators specialize in assisting certified public accountants.

3. Legal investigators – Legal investigators are employed by a lawyer or a law firm to help them find information regarding cases. They help lawyers prepare defense cases or civil suits by interviewing witnesses and gathering pertinent evidence.

Private investigation jobs offer different rates of pay depending on the circumstances of the case and the amount of specialization required of the investigator. Generally, it pays better to be a specialized investigator or to take on dangerous cases. However, being a company employee may provide more benefits and stable pay.



By: Paul Ghossain

About the Author: